A Quote by Alissa Nutting
I really want readers to put themselves into the shoes of each character. So the opening lines are an orienting technique: this is where you are, this is who you are. Go.
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I'll never forget my high school acting teacher, Anthony Abeson, who said, "It starts with the shoes." When I think about a character, it does start with the shoes: What kind would she wear? How would she walk in them? If I'm going to put on a dress for a role - I don't care if it's the hardest dress to put on - I have to put the shoes on first. The physicality leads me to the character.
Reporters have to use their imagination, really put themselves in the shoes of the person they want to interview.
The clothes, the shoes, the gold belts and the necklaces always click me into the character, for sure. You could not feel the character, and then you put on the shoes and get the walk.
The actor's job is to put themselves in the shoes of the character they are trying to portray as truthfully as possible.
A book is something that young readers can experience on their own time. They decide when to turn the page. They'll put their arm right on the page so you can't turn it because they're not ready to go to the next page yet. They just want to look at it again, or they want to read the book over and over because they really enjoy setting the pace themselves.
I really do literally put myself into a character's shoes.
It's really fun to put yourself into a character - into shoes you wouldn't normally be in.
I go into the crowd almost everyday and I really really really despise it when people try to steal my shoes. That is a thing where they're proabably like 'oh, you can just go out and buy a new pair'. Like yeah, but those are my shoes. How would you feel if I tried to steal your shoes?
Readers need to see themselves between the lines of the story.
Any character, for me, always comes together in the hair, makeup, and wardrobe. Shoes especially. For some reason, shoes really do it for me because they help me figure out how the character walks.
It's really an organic sort of process. You start off with the character on the page. You fall in love with that character and you have to represent that character well and I think it's just an evolution there. Using the accent and speaking the lines with the accent in fact opens the door to who the character really is.
If you have a character stand up and put on her shoes and open the door, in order to do that, you're imagining her shoes and her clothes and her house and her door. The character becomes more real. But once you've done that, you can probably just get it all across with a couple of details.
Certain roles, I just won't invest in. I'll go in and audition, but I might not spend five hours trying to figure out what the character is really about or go so deep into it. I might just learn the lines and go in and try my best because I know it's not safe for me to love the character or to fall in love with the idea of the role.
I love Italy, and that's where I make my own shoes. But the French really do respect designers. Italy is totally different; footwear is an industry. The shoes are all about craft and luxury. French shoes are more about straight lines, and they are way more geometric.
I believe the most intricate plot won't matter much to readers if they don't care about the characters, especially in a series. So I try to focus hard on making each character, whether villain or hero, have an interesting flaw that readers can relate to.
It really depends on what the screenplay is asking of you, and what your responsibility is to that character. You have the author's intent to deal with, you have the filmmaker's vision, and then you have your own wants, desires and needs for the character. It's collaborative. But I knew, right off the bat, that there was no way to go into some sort of pink-haired, clown-nosed character with Ronald McDonald shoes.
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